Ramparts We Watch
- 1st feature-length film by Roy Larsen & Time, Inc.
- produced & directed by Louis de Rochemont
- narrated by Westbrook Van Voorhis
- a "docu-drama" with newsreel authenticity
- scripted late 1938 through early 1939 by Robert Richards and Cedric Worth
- an interpretation of America's World War I experience
- impact on daily life: Kovac, Bensinger, Averill families
- "American Community" faced both internal and external threats
- from innocence, peace, pluralism to war, unity, mobilization and Americanization
- in production from spring 1939 to August 1940
- authentic locations, 1400 real people
- New London CT, with newsreels
- technically direct and simple
- released August 30, 1940
- Baptism of Fire at end as a warning
- speeches by FDR and Wendell Willkie
- widely seen & debated; banned in Pennsylvania
- Germany stopped exhibition of all U.S. films
Sources:
- Dunlop, Donald. "'The March of Time' and 'The Ramparts We Watch'." Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 5, No. 2, 1985, 149-164.
- Fielding, Ray. The March of Time, 1935-1951. New York, Oxford, 1978.
- Sakmyster, Thomas. "Nazi Documentaries of Intimidation: Feldzug in Polen (1940), Feuertaufe (1940) and Sieg im Westen (1941)" Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, vol. 16, No. 4, October 1996, 485-514. This article argues that de Rochmont used footage from Feldzug in Polen (Campaign in Poland) rather than Feuertaufe (Baptism of Fire), keeping the original music and most of the words of the narration of Feldzug in Polen, but changing the sequence of scenes and altering the tone and style of the narration with an English version. He acquired this footage from George Nitze of the New York office of the German distributor UFA but did not have permission to use it in Ramparts.
- Vaughn, Stephen. Holding Fast the Inner Lines : Democracy, Nationalism, and the Committee on Public Information. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1980.
- WWI on reserve
- World War One Links